Mike Oldfield - 1999-07-25 - Katowice, Poland

Mike Oldfield
1999-07-25
Spodek Hall, Katowice, Poland
Then & Now Tour 1999
FM Broadcast Recording, very good quality
Available in both Lossless (FLAC) and Mp3 (320 kbps) versions

To wrap up this brief look at Mike Oldfield's career: As the eighties wore on, and with relentless pressure from his record company to make more commercial music, Mike did what he could to balance his musical and artistic goals with pop song limitations, but harbored increasing bitterness, resentment, and feuds with Virgin regarding his music. The success of the pop aspects of Crises (1983) and Discovery (1984) only made things worse as Virgin pushed even harder for more pop/rock songs with 'hit potential'. This resulted in even less room on Mike's subsequent albums for his trademark extended instrumentals, culminating in Earth Moving (1989), which consisted entirely of  short pop songs and no instrumentals. Not surprisingly, this album is generally considered the lowpoint of Mike's career. Fed up by the label's interference in his music, Mike rebelled and just wanted out of his contract, and for his next album, Amarok (1990), Mike purposely made an album that Virgin (and owner Richard Branson) would hate. He went back to his full album long-form instrumental, but in this case also made it more disjointed and experimental and impossible to subdivide into 'singles' (He even included a literal F-U to his record company, as an embedded morse code message of 'Fuck you RB' referring to Richard Branson. The album was released and progressive fans hailed it as a return to form for Mike and one of his greatest works. Virgin was less impressed, and if Mike was going to do an instrumental album, they wanted a sequel to Tubular Bells, but Mike refused. He finished out his his contract with Virgin with a hastily put together mixed bag album of different pop/rock songs and styles (Heaven's Open (1991), and then he was free again to do the music he wanted. His first album with his new label (Warner Bros.) was the long-awaited sequel to Tubular Bells, Tubular Bells II (1992), just to rub it in to his former label. It was a remarkable re-imagining of the original, taking the same themes and structure and doing different variations and extrapolations on them. In subsequent Warner albums, he explored new and varied musical styles, from a softer new age sound on a concept album based on an Arthur C. Clarke novel (Songs of Distant Earth-1994) to Celtic themes (Voyager (1996) to an all-guitar album (Guitars-1999). He also did another sequel to Tubular Bells with Tubular Bells III (1998). His career has continued to explore varied musical styles but he always also returns to the ethereal long-form instrumentals of his early albums. Most recently, Mike released a long-awaited sequel to Ommadawn, Return to Ommadawn (2017), which has received much praise and acclaim. The show featured here is from 1999 and consisted primarily of sections from his recent albums Songs of Distant Earth, Guitars, and a nearly complete Tubular Bells III, in addition to a couple of his singles and 'Ommadawn'. A very nice show to highlight his 1990's work, and to cap this look at the fantastic and innovative musician that is  Mike Oldfield.
.

Tracklist:
01. In The Beginning
02. Let There Be Light
03. Supernova
04. Crystal Clear
05. Shadow On The Wall
06. Ommadawn Part 1
07. Band Intro
08. Cochise
09. Embers
10. Summit Day
11. Muse
12. The Source Of Secrets
13. The Watchful Eye
14. Jewel In The Crown
15. Outcast
16. Serpent Dream
17. The Inner Child
18. Secrets
19. Far Above The Clouds
20. Moonlight Shadow
21. Family Man
22. Far Above The Clouds Encore

Time.: 02:25:32
 
FLAC - Mike Oldfield_1999-07-25_Katowice,Poland_FLAC.rar

mp3 - Mike Oldfield_1999-07-25_Katowice,Poland_mp3.rar